Jan BetaEagerly waiting for a VERY rare retro donation to arrive. DHL tracking says it’s 10 stops from here. I’ll post pictures as soon as it arrives. (I hope it makes it in one piece! 🤞🤞🤞)
Weights around 27kg (had to carry it up the stairs to the third floor).
The main attraction seems to have made it over more or less intact thankfully. Will have to inspect the innards more closely, of course (it needs repaired anyway). It’s huuuge and clunky and gorgeous and best of all, it’s mine now!!
The keyboard needs "some" TLC and the machine herself lost two of the plastic feet during shipping. Unfortunate, but not unfixable. Will have a closer look at everything in a series of videos. Coming soon to a screen near you! ;)
Special shout out to Adrian Black for referring the donation to me (mostly for reasons of location, unfortunately it was still a bit too far from here for a quick day trip and pick up).
And of course thanks to the person who donated it in the first place (who I have yet to ask if it‘s okay to disclose their name).
Stege 🐜@janbeta mhh the keys look quite good. Maybe just a good wash, some retrobrighting and some spare keys.
Maybe the broken part on the right side can be glued back together?
I would think, the case of the keyboard is the rarest part of all those broken things.
@Stege I think a bit of glue is going to fix it right up. I’ve seen (and repaired) much worse!
@janbeta i used your method and your ingredients from your (8 year old) video to retrobrite the Amiga Keycaps and it worked perfectly!
I only added a little more water so every key can be covered with the lotion.
This way it even works indoor if you have sunny days like last week.
Rycochet@janbeta That feels like a tragedy to me, like a damaged work of art or an old machine hollowed out to make etsy tat. Hopefully someday neo Commodore will have the financial stability and abililty required to produce replacement casings for the rarer Commodore machines that are being lost to shipping damage and the brittle plastic plague.
@Rycochet I think it’s going to be a relatively easy fix. I’ve seen (and repaired) much worse. Still unfortunate and kind of sad though, of course. :/
Stretchdude@janbeta Oh, I wanted one of those for 30 years. But Always way too expensive.
I listened to "stay forever Technik - Amiga History" (recommended! But German) on my way to work this morning. Made me sad... Kind of.
I listened to "stay forever Technik - Amiga History" (recommended! But German) on my way to work this morning. Made me sad... Kind of.
Olem@janbeta Ooooh, that is a sweet beast. Congrats! Looking forward to a video or two :D
Philip Heron
I’m Tired And Everything Hurts@janbeta hnnnnnnggggg
Dr Johnny Blanchard
Mr. Hmpf@janbeta the one I gave away *sigh*. If it comes with a Picasso card, I still have the user manual for that if you need it
@phako Oh noes! You had one of those? I always dreamt of one (even though I had a pretty great A2000 at one point). Don’t know what’s in it exactly yet, there was talk of a PC card and multiple hard disk drives though.
Bitslingers-R-Us
Josh@janbeta Wooah 😲😲
NerdRelaxo@janbeta I'm a little jealous... 😔Tried to get a normal A3000 one on eBay a few days ago, but the price was way beyond my pain threshold.
@NerdRelaxo Same here, I've been looking for an A3000 pretty much since they were first released but could never afford one. I actually made sure the person who donated this one knows how rare and expensive these are and they were still okay with sending it. I am mega grateful and feel quite honored to be trusted with such a rare beast, of course.
Limey_Tank@janbeta I didn’t even know they did a 3000T!!!
@Limey_tank It was quickly replaced by the A4000 I think. They didn’t make them for a long time.
@janbeta very interested in seeing the main board
@Limey_tank It's huge!
blami@janbeta That’s some computer mass for classes! Commodore sure did know how computer should look!
@blami It’s HEAVY indeed. A critical mass of Amiga. 😅
Dudley of Yesterzine 
Phil Haigh@janbeta fantastic!
Karl Baron@janbeta 2 mouse ports?!?
anjune
Emanuel Schleussinger 💾
Thomas Sturm@tsturm @kalleboo I guess they just forgot to put it on there. Looks like a regular production model, possibly an early run. I’ll have to investigate. Commodore were notoriously bad with serial numbers though so it’s likely nothing too special. There were not too many of these made in general I think.
@tsturm Some of the later models are rare indeed, especially the ones aimed at the niche "professional market" like the A3000 and A4000 towers. The desktop versions are still rare but not nearly as much as the big towers.
Shred@janbeta @tsturm It's hard to find concrete sales figures. But yes, the tower models are extremely rare. For the A4000T, Dr Peter Kittel once said that only 35 working units have been sold in Germany. I found no numbers for the A3000T, but I doubt they were much higher. In general, less A3000 models were sold than A4000 models (including the tower models).
Congratulations on the catch, Jan! I must admit I'm quite envious, but it's comforting to know the machine is in good hands. 😁
Marc@m2c_n3e @shred @tsturm Don’t know of any black towers (maybe a third party upgrade kit thing?) but there indeed were UX versions of the big box Amigas capable of running Unix. Even the A2000 came in such a variant for a short time (with a 68020 + MMU card pre-installed if I remember correctly). :)
(Edit: I accidentally typed "Linux" instead of "Unix" 🤦♂️)
@janbeta @m2c_n3e @tsturm The A2000UX was real. There was one at an Amiga fair in Cologne, back in the good days. It was Commodore's attempt to get a foot into the business market, although not very successful. AFAIR they never really left the prototype stage.
A black Amiga tower was likely a 3rd party upgrade kit. However, I count myself as hardcore Amiga fan, and I'm still discovering new facets about these machines.
Carsten@janbeta Uh. I wish I would have the Draco still. Was an Amiga compatible 060 NLE video system. Also tower and insanely heavy.
Sylvhem@janbeta Oh wow!
Hamish The PolarBear
europlus 
@janbeta oh no!